How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?

I can still feel the breeze that rustles through the trees

And misty memories of days gone by

But we could never see tomorrow

It would be that no one, no one ever told us about the sorrow..

-How Can You Mend A Broken Heart 

Al Green

When thinking of topics for today's blog post I kept hearing this Al Green song play over and over in my head and it got to be so annoying that I had to put my headphones in my iPod and crank it up and then it came to me...How Can You Mend A Broken Heart. I'm not talking about a broken heart as in when your boyfriend/girlfriend calls it quits or a broken heart that can be mended over a shared pint of Cherry Garcia Ice Cream, a bottle of strong tequila and a few good friends. No I'm talking about mending a broken heart that is within a marriage. 

People have this odd misconception of a wonderful happily ever after when they get married and I'm sorry to say but that happily ever after only happens in fairy tales and I'm sure that after five years of marriage to Prince Charming even Cinderella gets tired of picking up his dirty underwear and falling into the toilet due to him leaving the seat up too! 

Let's just face it, there is no perfect marriage as there is no perfect person. I have been married for nine years and I will testify with my right hand on the Holy Bible that marriage can bring out the best in us but it can also bring out our worse. I talk about my husband and post pictures on Facebook and Twitter all of the time, but don't get it twisted our marriage is flawed just as we both are flawed, but we work at making it great. Which leads me to the main point of my blog....

You can become broken hearted within your marriage...hey nothing personal, but shit happens. For example maybe the man that you married isn't the provider that you once thought and it breaks your heart that you have to put in extra hours at work while he sits his lazy ass at home playing the video game. 

Maybe the woman that you married is actually in love with another man and deep down inside you know that you were really her second choice. 

Maybe you thought that your happily ever after would include long walks along the beach, candlelit dinners and a bed filled with roses every night but in reality all you got was a quickie before the big game, bills stacked up to the roof and a screaming two year old. 

In a marriage a broken heart can come in many shapes and forms and not necessarily from one person stepping outside of the marriage. Wherever the heart break comes from heart break is heart break and my question is How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?

Out side of hashing it out with your mate in an all out battle of wills and words I think that the best way for a couple to deal with any big and long lasting relationship issue it to seek marital counseling. 

"What, and let some stranger all up in my business?"

Yes and let a stranger all up in your business. 

I say this because that stranger who is PAID to be all up in your business is a trained professional who went to school to be able to help you help yourself and to help your marriage. 

"But why should we pay someone to listen to your problems when I can just get advice from my girlfriends?"

That is a question that I get all of the time when I talk about marriage counseling. The reason that you want to seek a professional to help you in your marriage rather than your close friends is because first of all your friends are not professionals. Secondly your friends are automatically emotionally attached to you and will only give you their biased opinions of the situation. With that biased opinion that you will get from your friends you will also get an unfair advantage over your mate. 

"I am afraid that my spouse won't go"

This is a fear that I had before I suggested marital therapy with my husband and I was releived when he said that he'd been thinking the same thing. You won't know unless you bring it up. Get the conversation going about how the two of you aren't connecting like you use to or that you want to seek professional help for your marriage. If your spouse still won't go then you go alone, hopefully once your mate starts to see the positive changes that you are making he/she will want to start making changes as well. 

"I'm too ashamed to talk about our problems."

Hey I am embarrassed about going to the gyno sometimes but am I willing to live with an itchy situation down under? No. People go to a professional for a toothache, a headache, an itch that they don't want to scratch so why is it so shameful to seek professional help for one of the most important relationships in your adult life?

Whatever way you look at it marriage counseling is something to consider when you and your spouse are having unresolved issues and don't know where else to turn. I'm not saying this only because my husband and myself have gone through therapy, but I'm saying it because it works. Now, let me throw this in, marriage counseling isn't going to work for you if: 

1. You go into therapy lying

2. You don't do the assignments at home

3. You simply give up

In my second book In Treatment? I will take readers on a journey of three couples who sought therapy for their marital problems. The reader will see how therapy can either help the couple stay together or help to to finally decide that their happily ever after doesn't involve one another. 

TTFN!